Studio Sends

I thought I would delve into N6 (I haven’t dared move from N5.5 yet) with a simple project.

Well, trying to set up studio sends got me so discombobulated I just gave up. How can it be so incredibly difficult to activate and then set to 0db a bunch of channels? In N5 I did it in less than 10 seconds across 8 stems. I send to studio to monitor in one hit from Control Room. I then hold Alt and click on the output levels - bosh bosh bang - done.

Not so in N6. I found myself having to hover my ouse to ascertain whether these sends were pre or pst, active or not, etc etc. The alt key got me into all sorts of trouble.

WTF?

Why on EARTH of SB decided to complete screw up the desk???

Please add your voice to:

this thread

and

this thread.

And then keep bumping it, call steinberg or email, or go to the AES show or whatever is near you and have them actually comment on it. They keep ignoring it in their typical fashion.

I actually think we should probably move the discussions over to Gearslutz where there are more prospective users of Cubase and Nuendo. That way we can dissuade them from buying this software and maybe that will finally get Steinberg’s butts moving. Though I wouldn’t count on it.

Quite right. And just 4 sends is not enough.

Thanks guys - I feel less like “it was me” that was dumb.

I will try and find time to make louder noises to SB.

Having run away form N6 with my hands in the air, I am trying again with it today, on projects that are not too “wide” on the desk side of things. One thing I am starting to love is the fact that the mix console can be totally fixed full screen to one monitor.

To get this working sensibly though, I sacrificed a 30" monitor from another workstation. The mix console really needs that height - and with it it starts to make more sense.

Another aspect of N6 mix console that is growing on me is the navigation or “visibility” function. As a composer I have for years been grumbling (in N5.5 and earlier) about the difficulty of following a sound from MIDI track through to VST Instrument fader on the desk (sorry mix console). There are various ways I have tried to solve this, and in N5 the usual workaround is to have the VST output folded out in the inspector of the project window on the left. Kinds works, but if you then select “e” and go into the channel settings of that output, whilst playing notes on a mother keyboard, the fact that one has “sync project and mixer selection” enabled means that suddenly you have silence from the MIDI track, as it is no longer “monitored”, since you are now focussed on the VST output channel. A reall PITA. In fact very much a PITA when you have many many MIDI tracks, an evolving project, various multi output VST instruments… gets very dizzying sometimes. All this in N5.5…

All this N5.5 explanation leads to this discovery in N6. By locking channel(s) to the left of the mixer, a great N6 feature, I can very quickly and reliably start to gather channels I am actually interested in, and work on them quickly. My projects often seem to accumulate vast numbers of redundant faders you see, it’s just the way I work. This feature of N6 is really starting to draw me towards leaving 5.5 now, and firing up N6 more frequently.

Which leads to a feature request:

This “show tracks with data” thing. Potentially very powerful, if only we could better define the “with data” part. It owuld be great if N6 could calculate which VST Instruments channels are being sent to from MIDI tracks that have parts on them, say between locators. I know, this is the “show used tracks” feature from years ago, re-visited.

Given that on the inspector, a MIDI track can be “associated” with a specific output of a specific VST Instrument, then all the “signal flow information” is already in place to make my feature request work. No?

I might to a screen shot to make this really clear. It would be an amazing feature for both Nuendo and Cubase users.

SB?